Huey Lyons is the Lyons in Lyons & O’Haver Taxidermy, a sportsman’s institution in La Mesa.

Lyons, 82, and still an avid waterfowl hunter who frequents Baja, has been preserving dead critters for 68 years. His partner in sporting preservation, Mike O’Haver, has been checking them for 65 years. But Lyons says this fall they’ve seen two deer that are like no others they’ve ever seen.

One is unusual. The other is just big.

To prove his point on the unusual, Lyons held up a 3x3 buck shot in the Boulder Creek area by Tony Ricard.

“I’ve never seen canine teeth in a deer, but this one has them,” Lyons said, pointing to two small, but very sharp teeth protruding from the buck’s upper jaw (maxillary). “How’s that for unusual?”

Research indicates canines are extremely rare in both whitetail and mule deer. They’ve been documented in both, but far fewer than 1 percent have them. Wildlife scientists attribute the canines to being evolutionary throwbacks to a time when ancestral deer had them. Jim Heffelfinger wrote in his book, “Deer of the Southwest,” that upper canines have been found in mule deer and whitetails in this region.

“They generally are small, peg-like teeth,” he wrote, describing what the two teeth in Ricard’s buck look like.

From the highly unusual to the very large, and that would be the 4x3 buck taken by David Herbst, who hunted in the Ramona area. Lyons measured the base of the buck’s antlers at a whopping 5½ inches around.

“Must have something to do with the fires and all the extra feed out there since then,” Lyons said. “I remember when they first opened the Lagunas to hunting in the mid- 1940s. We saw bucks in this class, but never with antlers this thick.”

The antler spread of Herbst’s buck measured 22½ inches. Mike Borden of El Cajon checked in this season with a wider buck, a fine 3x3 with a 25-inch spread, but it didn’t have the mass of Herbst’s animal.

What we’re seeing at the Lyons & O’Haver shop is more proof that San Diego County is producing some very good deer hunting as our landscape changes due to fires and climate changes. All 3,000 D-16 tags (centerfire rifle season) were gone by the first week of the season. It opened Oct. 23.

Toughest of all the hunts, though, clearly is the San Diego Muzzleloading Rifle Either-Sex hunt, with only five of the 80 hunters tagging out.

In all, hunters in San Diego County shot 412 deer last season. For some perspective of how tough hunting is for rifle and bow shooters, 16 adult mountain lions will take more than that total in a year, killing at a deer-every-two-week pace.

But mountain lions don’t take their carcasses to meat processors. Most hunters do. And in spite of a slow opener on Oct. 23 due to wind, rain and cold. Bisher’s Meats in Ramona reports over 70 deer have been dragged in by hunters. T&H Meats in San Marcos reports 15 deer have been processed. The antlerless deer season ends Nov. 14. Buck season ends Nov. 21.